Having skipped the M3 line of processors entirely, the Mac Mini M4 Pro is Apple’s way of hoping to continue the trend of its compact, small form factor machines that’s still big on power, productivity and resourcefulness.
As one of the top of the line models of the Mac Mini M4 series, I took the portable PC in as a daily driver, just to see if whatever I learned from using the MacBook Pro 16 also stuck.
What Am I Looking At?
If you’re coming up from the previous Mac Mini M2 series, then what you’re looking at is the exact same thing, at least on the outside. For those that have never seen one of Apple’s latest iterations of the Mac Mini, it is basically the fruit company’s very own and personal take of the mini PC, but with more “oomph!” added to it.
It is, as mentioned in my title, a minimalist’s wetdream, providing the bare minimum in regards to the ports. This is both a pro and a con, depending on which side of the coin you see this from. That’s
The Mac Mini M4 Pro is as good as it gets for the chip but the amount of Unified Memory it starts out with is set at 24GB as a base. For that matter, storage capacity starts at what is now considered a paltry 512GB, with internal expansion of up to 8TB. The model in my lab is set at 1TB and with 48GB of RAM
What’s Good About it?
In spite of its compact nature, this generation’s Mac Mini is no slouch. I mean, to be fair, the M4 Pro chip isn’t exactly that much more powerful than its predecessor, but that said, it handles everyday functions with the speed of a stabbed rabbit.
Navigating through the different tabs, apps, and programs are expectedly fast, but when I gave my video team some time with it, watching them edit videos on it – along with the trackpad, Magic Mouse, and 5K XDR display Apple had provided and requested that we use in tandem – on the Mac Mini M4 Pro was a breeze for them.
Despite it having a fan, it barely makes a whisper for the most part, save except for the odd occasion when I hear the fan do a very short burst or ramp up, and then going silent again, particularly when I opened up the Cinebench 2024 benchmark app.
Extra: Can You Game With It?
The answer to this is a strong and resounding yes, and depending on the game titles, you can also game with a certain level of aesthetic creature comforts, such as ray-tracing. On that note, the Mac Mini M4 Pro is able to run Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows with the ray-tracing set to the medium preset, with average frames of 40 fps and 1% lows of 19 fps whenever things get heated in-game. However, because of the way its heat dissipation has been designed, it can get relatively toasty when in this mode.
What’s the Catch?
The Mac mini M4 Pro, while powerful, has downsides including a lack of upgradable RAM and storage, limited ports, and a high cost for upgrades, making it a less flexible option than some alternatives.
Like other Apple Silicon Macs, the Mac Mini M4 Pro features soldered-in RAM and storage, so post-purchasing upgrades isn’t possible. Then there’s what I like to call the “Apple Premium”: while upgrading the internals independently is difficult, bumping up any components within the Mac Mini M4 Pro gets increasingly expensive with each and every option.
The last and most obvious drawback is the very obvious lack of ports on the Mac Mini M4 Pro. There’s a total of four USB-C ports – three Thunderbolt 5 ports in the back and two normal ports in the front – but no USB-A port. It also doesn’t have a built-in SD card slot, something that would be an absolutely boon to content creators, photographers, and videographers alike. For another matter, I’m not a fan of the whole power-button-at-the-bottom design but I get it: minimalism has a price and this is it.
Should I Buy It?
Sure, if you’re a minimalist who just wants a clean-looking desktop, or if you just don’t have the space for the other things. Again, Mac products don’t come cheap; The starting price of a bare bones Mac Mini M4 Pro starts just shy of RM2,500 but that cost rises quickly with a fully decked out unit – an M4 Pro with 14-cores, 64GB RAM, 8TB of storage, and a 10Gb Ethernet port – will set you back a wallet-haemorraging RM20,100.
Fun fact, our Mac Mini M4 Pro and its configuration costs just shy of RM10,000, and if you add in the Pro XDR Display with the Nano Texture panel and Pro Stand, that’s an additional RM30,500.
But as these things go, buying into the Apple Mac ecosystem is a lifestyle, not just a decision. So, if you’re still adamant on getting one of these Mac Mini M4 Pro systems, and a fully kitted out model at that, be prepared to pay the price for the second-hand Ford Fiesta from 2014.
Photography by John Law and Ian Chee.
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